Carth:This. I think a lot of people can't appreciate a movie for its artistic merits. If a plot doesn't entertain them the entire time they are bored and don't like it.

What is the goal of a movie? For me, it is entertainment. Whether that entertainment is too scare, excite, arouse, humor, etc. it has to be entertaining. There have been films that are poorly made but I loved (Clerks) and there have films that have been technical and visual achievements that left me bored to tears (LOTR:FOTR). Citizen Kane is a technical marvel, and is entertaining, but not a greatly entertaining film. I liked it, but didn't love it.

Look at Titanic. Many people rail against it's crappy dialogue, but the film is amazing from a technical perspective and is extremely well made. Also I thought Avatar was fairly boring (and about 45 minutes too long), but it is amazingly well done. Contrast that with the first Terminator. Some of it is very amateurish from a technical point of view, but it is very entertaining.

Obscure Login:I bought 2001 and still haven't been able to make it all the way through it without falling asleep. I've given it many chances, tried watching it right after a huge cup of coffee and still no dice.

Interesting that there are others who don't think it's a masterpiece. Maybe I hang out with too many film snobs. I don't have ADD by any stretch of the imagination but I just don't understand what a 15 minute docking sequence contributes to the story. The first scene with the proto-humans discovering tools/weapons was great however, I'll give it that.

As for Starship Troopers, it was satire but it worked on both levels. It was satire and for those who didn't want to think too much it was also a kick ass action flick. However, the scene with "coolest gay guy on Earth" Neil Patrick Harris in a Nazi uniform mind melding with a giant oozing vagina was just WTF?-overload.

skinink:The thing that hasn't held up much (or that never made sense) is the "Humans as batteries" part. They're machines and they can't use nuclear energy? But I guess for a movie about the world not being real the Brothers chose a bad explanation.

The humans as batteries/food shiat is farking absurd to anyone with a passing knowledge of biology (or like, basic physics). You will never, NEVER get more energy out of a living being than you put into it. I don't recall what they fed the humans, but you'd surely get more energy by just burning it or creating machines to metabolize the food.

I give Soylent Green a pass because it serves their goal of killing people, it's not intended to be an endless energy source, but raising humans as food is vastly more wasteful than raising cows and other fast growing, meaty animals that subsist on simple plants and such.

BroVinny:Barakku: Again with this HORRIFIC format that requires me to click a grid (only after it's COMPLETELY LOADED) to see a giant cockfarking image and three lines of text for each movie. Nope.

Once the initial window is loaded, you can right-arrow to scroll through the movies. It's not that bad.

I finally found that after it took 5 clicks to open one of them, but jesus. It's just a worse slideshow format. In fact, it's a worse list format, for so few items it makes more sense to scroll. It is nice that they allow arrow key navigation, but the content is 1 paragraph per item.

spman:Big Lebowski is an unfunny overrated mess of a film with no plot to speak of, and very little in the way of jokes or humor. Just 2 hours of meandering, pointless dialog.

Fight Club is crappy pseudo-philosophical tripe that is neither entertaining nor thought provoking.

Blade Runner can be appreciated for being a hugely important and influential film and inspiring nearly every dystopian Sci-Fi film since, but as a movie itself it sucks.

Inception was just flat out nonsense, lacking a coherent plot or anything even remotely resembling interesting or engaging narrative. If I have to watch your film four times while taking extensive notes just to follow your story and have it make sense, then you've failed as a filmmaker.

Everything else on that list is gold.

You're a terrible movie critic, and apparently have a poor attention span.

Wretschko:And yet we have fanboys drooling over Starship Troopers as being an awesome action movie..

It's unlikely that folks actually think this movie is *good*. It's more like "this movie is so bad, it's actually awesome". If you watch this movie sober, you're doing it very wrong.

As for the others... you know, Airplane was funny, but in retrospect, Top Secret was far better, and seems to get little credit.

Matrix was a solid flick that would likely be praised more today if there were no sequels at all. Heat was a good movie, but I feel that people were expecting a lot more from the DeNiro / Pacino cast, rather than the somewhat brief time they spend on the same scene (iirc).

mjbok:Carth: This. I think a lot of people can't appreciate a movie for its artistic merits. If a plot doesn't entertain them the entire time they are bored and don't like it.

What is the goal of a movie? For me, it is entertainment. Whether that entertainment is too scare, excite, arouse, humor, etc. it has to be entertaining. There have been films that are poorly made but I loved (Clerks) and there have films that have been technical and visual achievements that left me bored to tears (LOTR:FOTR). Citizen Kane is a technical marvel, and is entertaining, but not a greatly entertaining film. I liked it, but didn't love it.

Look at Titanic. Many people rail against it's crappy dialogue, but the film is amazing from a technical perspective and is extremely well made. Also I thought Avatar was fairly boring (and about 45 minutes too long), but it is amazingly well done. Contrast that with the first Terminator. Some of it is very amateurish from a technical point of view, but it is very entertaining.

I'm sure different directors have different goals when they make a movie. Some just want make an entertaining film, some care more about creating a work of art, and some aspire to both. Problems arise when the viewers' and filmmaker's expectations don't align. If you go into 400 blows or Roshomon expecting Fast and the Furious part 6 you're going to be disappointed.

simplicimus:SharkTrager: Shostie: Well... Spartacus IS an uneven, spotty drama. It's what happens when you hire Kubrick and don't give him full creative control.

Spartacus is what happens when you have an actor with the typical actor's ego essentially in charge of the production but who has no discernible talent as a producer or director and who is only making the film out of spite.

I actually like the film, but the review is spot on and the issues are largely Douglas' fault.

Carth:I'm sure different directors have different goals when they make a movie. Some just want make an entertaining film, some care more about creating a work of art, and some aspire to both. Problems arise when the viewers' and filmmaker's expectations don't align. If you go into 400 blows or Roshomon expecting Fast and the Furious part 6 you're going to be disappointed.

I agree, however something can be a work of art and entertaining. You mentioned the F/F franchise. "Fast Five" was entertaining. Mindless and stupid, but entertaining. Compare that to a "work of art" like AW's "Empire." I would rather watch "Fast Five" four times than watch "Empire" once, and it would take the same amount of time to do either. Of course AW was an aw, and not much of a film-maker.

"inception" wasn't a difficult movie to understand, it just wasn't a very good film. If anything, I found the movie to be patronizing. The movie goes out of its way to explain the rules of the film over and over again. It would have been better if Hellen Page or whoever that broad was wasn't in the film and they just let the viewer figure it out.

ciderczar:VoodooHillbilly: Fano: He watches quite a few movies, every once in a while he seems to phone it in. He also likes Nic Cage an inordinate amount and I believe gave a glowing review to "Knowing."

OTOH he also praised Rapa Nui (new window) because he admits he loves lots of big brown breasts.

I've seen Rapa Nui, and I totally agree with loving lot of breasts of any color.

Nicholas Cage and his nasal monotone voice makes my brain hurt. Nothing that douche does should ever qualify as "acting".

GimpyNip:"inception" wasn't a difficult movie to understand, it just wasn't a very good film. If anything, I found the movie to be patronizing. The movie goes out of its way to explain the rules of the film over and over again. It would have been better if Hellen Page or whoever that broad was wasn't in the film and they just let the viewer figure it out.

I wonder if she was a last-minute add-in specifically for that purpose

Lord of War really was a good film. And on the Michael Bay style-blow shiat up tip, there's nothing wrong with The Rock and Face/Off was too absurd to not be respected. Not since Shatner and Ricardo Monalban did two actors fight so hard to chew the most scenery as Cage and Travolta in that flick.

Mugato:I never saw Gone with the Wind (and I'm supposed to be a film geek) so maybe I can ask this here. That shot of the guy carrying the girl kicking and screaming up the stairs....did he rape her? If so, that's not very nice..

Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) and his wife Scarlett (Vivien Leigh) have been arguing when he picks her up & carries her to their bedroom. To get it past the censors, the very next scene has her sitting up in bed the next morning, purring away from (presumably) orgasmic bliss.

spman:Big Lebowski is an unfunny overrated mess of a film with no plot to speak of, and very little in the way of jokes or humor. Just 2 hours of meandering, pointless dialog.

Fight Club is crappy pseudo-philosophical tripe that is neither entertaining nor thought provoking.

Blade Runner can be appreciated for being a hugely important and influential film and inspiring nearly every dystopian Sci-Fi film since, but as a movie itself it sucks.

Inception was just flat out nonsense, lacking a coherent plot or anything even remotely resembling interesting or engaging narrative. If I have to watch your film four times while taking extensive notes just to follow your story and have it make sense, then you've failed as a filmmaker.

Everything else on that list is gold.

Inception was a standard heist movie. It was well executed and clever, but it was not particularly complex. If you had trouble following the rather simple plot (put MacGuffin on the wrong side of a secure facility) the problem is with you.

None of the others are really worth debating, I just get peeved by people who think Inception was an incredibly inventive or complex film.

It's about time someone called "2001" out for the pretentious borefest it was.

I worship that movie. I mourn the future it depicted didn't happen, but as an engineer it's non stop eye candy for me.

I'm building a hobby farm, and I'm going to set up the inside of the garage just like the pod bay. White walls, black floor, bright white lighting, the whole nine yards. I just hope the door opens when I get home....

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" Now that the Harry Potter series is over, maybe the truth can be realized: This has been the dullest franchise in the history of movie franchises."

X-Men: First Class" The entire film is a hackneyed exercise."

Bridesmaids" It's an overly contrived jumble, trying out too many comic ideas that eventually swamp the central subject of what a modern young woman expects regarding friendship, courtship and marriage.

Blue Valentine" Despite Blue Valentine's blatant sensememories of nakedness and affection, irritation and itch, what Gosling and Williams reveal about their own concepts of heterosexual experience is ultimately inane."

The King's Speech" Each scene in The King's Speech is so poorly staged that its ineptitude sometimes borders on the avant-garde."

The Social Network" Like one of those fake-smart, middlebrow TV shows, the speciousness of The Social Network is disguised by topicality. It's really a movie excusing Hollywood ruthlessness."

The Town" The Town is nearly as ludicrous as [Affleck's] debut Gone Baby Gone -- another poison pen letter to Beantown."

Toy Story 3" Toy Story 3 is so besotted with brand names and product-placement that it stops being about the innocent pleasures of imagination -- the usefulness of toys -- and strictly celebrates consumerism."

I think Inception was kind of like The Matrix in that it cribbed a LOT from a lot of other movies and literature but it wasn't a direct remake, sequel, prequel, reboot, re-imagining or based on a comic book and nowadays that's originality. So it had that going for it. Which is nice.

Mugato:I think Inception was kind of like The Matrix in that it cribbed a LOT from a lot of other movies and literature but it wasn't a direct remake, sequel, prequel, reboot, re-imagining or based on a comic book and nowadays that's originality. So it had that going for it. Which is nice.

Nolan's good for interesting takes on existing concepts. The Prestige was based on a novel, and actually SURPASED that novel, in terms of quality for me. Memento was, when all is said and done, a disjointed murder mystery, but one which plays with, again, that whole nature of reality/perception's effect on reality concept that I really dig. Honestly, his most conventional movies have been the Batman ones, and even THOSE have some nice concepts in them (What is the nature of heroism, who deserves to be called a hero, what qualifies as redemption, and even, to a lesser extent, order vs chaos in TDK.)

As for the semi-snarky (And I'm sorry if I'm misinterpretting.) ending, yes, it IS originality. Let's face it, only so many stories exist, and anything original is going to be a twisting of that concept in some way. Take Inception: it was, to some extent, The Minotaur. It even had Ariadne giving the hero a method of escaping the depths of the maze!

The problem with "Bridesmaids" is that the only likable character is the cop. The whole time I'm not thinking, "She's a great girl, I hope she figures it out." I was thinking, "this cop seems like a good egg, I hope she doesn't figures it out for his sake." She was a jealous, petty, manipulative, biatch.